Mangroves - more important than ever

Most of you have probably never seen or visited a mangrove forest.  They are by and large inaccessible, a muddy tangle of roots and stems at low tide, and flooded at high tide. But mangrove forests are vitally important.  Mangroves are the primary producers and nursery locations for coastal fisheries. Not only that but mangroves buffer storm surges protecting villages and cities just inland. But in too many places mangroves have been destroyed looked upon as wasted space by developers ever lusting after still more coastal property. in one case in Thailand mangroves were being destroyed to create ponds for growing shrimp, but at the same time damaging coastal fisheries.  However some progress is being made when local people begin to see the relationship between mangroves and their food and storm survival. In a world of rising seas levels, mangroves will be more important than ever. So if you live in southern Florida or other low areas, plant mangroves, don't build condos. That's TPP's wise but certain to be ignored advice.

Mangroves - very important forests

A news article from Treehugger reminded TPP that mangroves are a very special type of forest, and like forests everywhere, deforestation threatens them.  The "Republic of Change" is raising money to restore mangroves in the area of Madagascar, a place where deforestation of all sorts has been brutal and taken a toll on biological diversity. There are several reasons why this is a good idea. First, mangrove forests are very carbon rich, that is they are big biological reservoirs for carbon which they get from carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Second, mangroves grow at the interface between ocean and land where they act as buffers against storms and tsunamis. Third, they are the nurseries and primary producers that drive coastal fisheries throughout the tropics and subtropics. Yet, most people just see a tangle of stems, roots, and mud, something standing in the way of human coastal development. TPP has heard coastal development enthusiasts call mangroves "scrub", "waste areas" and "junk vegetation". In what can only be regarded as extremely wrong headed thinking, mangroves in some areas have and are being destroyed to farm shrimp while quite ignoring the role mangroves have in supporting coastal fisheries, a classic robbing ecologically rich peter to pay paul poorly.  To learn more about mangroves here's an old internet photo essay about mangroves that may be hard to get to without this link (and even then the link to the last 2 photos has been broken. Thanks IT!). This is one type of forest that even relatively few botanists have wandered through. Some of the photos show a mangrove restoration project southwest of Bangkok along the coast where mangrove destruction has taken place for shrimp farming. The mangrove image is courtesy of Ji-Elle, Wikimedia Creative Commons.